I don't care about User Experience | May 31, 2011

A few months ago I tweeted that we no longer needed to sell User Experience and our job was now to focus on delivering good user experiences. A few people asked me to expand on my thinking, so this quick post is in reference to that.

I’ve been running a User Experience Agency now for nearly six years. When we started almost nobody I spoke to had heard of the term user experience, let alone understood what a user experience consultancy did. There were a handful of agencies offering “UX services” in the UK, but most were really usability companies. As such we rarely, if ever, came up against other agencies offering a similar service to our own. So I spent the first 3-4 years at Clearleft explaining to everybody who would listen what User Experience was and why it mattered. I had to justify why we could’t jump straight into design and why we needed to spend weeks planning out the user interface. After all, no other agencies wanted to waste time doing “wireframing”, so could’t we just skip that part.

It was both exciting and frustrating in equal measure. Exciting, when I saw the lightbulbs go on over people’s heads, as I explained how many of the problems they faced could be mitigated with some basic research and planning. Frustrating when I could’t change people’s outlook though the logic of my arguments and strength of will alone. I suspect many of you have shared this frustration with me on more than one occasion. As such I have to thank many of our earlier clients for taking an approach which was both new and somewhat alien to them.

Over the last 2 years I’ve seen a dramatic change in the marketplace. First off, people now “get” what user experience is. And I don’t just mean designers and developers. I can’t remember the last time I had to explain to a potential client what user experience was and why it differed to others peoples approach. These days pretty much all of our prospective clients understand what user experience is and appreciate its importance.

The early part of this transition actually took me by surprise, as I’d find myself launching into my “UX is like Architecture” spiel without realising the person on the end of the phone already got it. These days, most of my time is spent explaining the nuances of our approach to UX and how it differs, often in incredibly subtle ways, to the competition. At times I miss being the “Only UX in the Village”. In retrospect that point of differentiation was actually quite easy, and helped define our character as an agency. However that no longer matters anymore.

These days we’ve stopped selling UX and started simply doing it.

Sure, some agencies or individuals haven’t quite reached that inflexion point yet, but I can tell you that it’s on the way. Demand is far outstripping supply, so if you’re not there yet, you soon will be. User Experience is no longer a point of difference, it’s just the way all good websites are built these days.

As such I’m bought to mind Jeff Veen’s comments when he said “I don’t care about accessibility.” Similarly I’m starting to care less and less about User Experience, not because it isn’t important, but because it’s the natural output of the way all good design and development agencies work and think.

Of course there are still challenges ahead, but I think the challenges are related to craft and mastery rather than evangelism. I’d be interested to know what you think?

Cargo Cults, Artificial Reefs and the East London Tech City | May 16, 2011

Back in November 2010, David Cameron announced plans to turn the Olympic Village in East London into a technology hub to rival Silicon Valley. These type of Grand Plans are great at generating headlines and creating a legacy for all those involved, but how likely are they to succeed? Are we going to inherit a shiny new creative centre in the aftermath of the 2012 Olympics, or will it become just another mediocre science park like the ones clinging to the sides of the M4?

It would seem that successive governments have tried to align themselves with the dream of Silicon Valley, with little success. Back in the late 70s and early 80s I grew up in a town called Bracknell which was supposed to be Europe’s answer to Silicon Valley. It had great transport links, a large business park intended to attract high tech companies, and plenty of social housing for all the staff. Companies like 3M and Panasonic moved in to set up offices, but it never really became more than a administrative centre and distribution hub. In part because the economic and regulatory incentives were’t in place, and in part because it just wasn’t a very nice place to live.

Jump forward to the 90s and it seemed that every region of the UK with more than than a couple of web designers wanted to lay claim to the Silicon label, so we laughingly inherited places like Silicon Glenn, Silicon Fen and our very own Silicon Beach. However if a few large, homogenous tech companies fails to make an ecosystem, a dozen small web design agencies definitely doesn’t.

This time around the government has decided to target the start-up community. “Hey”, they must be saying to themselves, “Silicon Valley has start-ups like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Old Street also has a few start-ups. That must mean that Old Street is like Silicon Valley.” As they say this I picture them leaning back in their Chesterfields, hands clasped behind their heads, feeling awfully smug about the mental leap they’ve just made. Silicon Vally has become short-hand for any and all technology, just as Holliwood has become shorthand for the movie industry.

Of course, the idea that East London in any way resembles Silicon Valley shows a distinct lack of understanding about our industry. However it is incredibly flattering that the government are starting to wake up to the importance of the UK tech sector. In a recent report it was suggested that the UK Internet economy contributed 7.2% to the gross domestic product back in 2009, making it the fifth largest sector in the UK, and just two points behind the financial sector. While many other sectors have been struggling, the Internet has been booming.

The cynic in me may attribute this newfound interest in the web as simply a PR opportunity for the government. A way of aligning themselves with a booming part of our economy in the hope of getting some Halo effect. The more practical side of me hopes that the government are really starting to understand the value of the digital economy and invest appropriately. Sadly, while the plans for an East London Tech City are grand, I worry that they are missing the mark.

All Governments have the tendency to think big, and try to solve big problems with big initiatives. Governments also tend to think in a very linear way and don’t often engage in system thinking. As such, there is a certain amount of cargo cultism going on here. The Government understands that big companies like Google and Facebook have big offices in big science parks. So in order to encourage the next generation of UK start-ups they propose building big offices in big science parks. The problem is, I don’t believe that lack of 5,000 square foot offices in East London is necessarily the thing holding the Old Street start-up community back from global domination.

An East London Tech City may well encourage Google to expand or Facebook to set up a significant outpost in the UK. Especially if they get the kind of tax breaks other countries like the Republic of Ireland have giving in the past. However if these new offices are going to be anything less than administrative and sales centres, the large companies need a mass of highly skilled engineers and designers to populate them. At the moment our current education system is critically failing the technology industry, so the only place to find such people is amongst the very start-ups the government are trying to support. Some start-ups may end up being acquired for talent, but more will probably go out of business as their star developers get poached by Google for twice the market rate. As such, the short term effects of the Tech City could potentially be quite damaging. Like putting a large shark in a tank full of minnows and coming in the next morning, surprised to find that it’s eaten them all.

Rather than building a Cargo Cult technology park in order to summon down the great silvery gods from the sky (or in this case, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale and Mountain View), we need to take a more holistic view of the problem. Instead we need to look at the factors necessary to stimulate and grow an ecosystem. In short we need to create an artificial reef.

One of the fundamental things every marine biologist understands is the need for a nursery; a safe place for young animals to grow and learn, free from major predators. In the marine world this is often the mangrove forests. In the web world it should be the Universities, but is more often than not the small design agencies and in-house web teams. So one of the fundamental things the Government needs to do if they are serious about the digital economy is to protect and replenish these nurseries. So they need to invest in the creation of world class design and technology schools to rival those in the US, while at the same time raising the quality of courses across the board. They also need to make it easier for companies to take on Interns and office juniors, through funding and work experience programs.

When creating an artificial reef, it’s very easy to throw a few concrete blocks in the water in the hope of attracting marine life. However the wrong PH levels in the concrete and animals won’t touch it with a barge pole. Instead, you have to understand the types of habitat particular breeds of animals prefer, and create an environment to suite.

Building an industrial park on the Olympic Site is like building an artificial reef with the wrong PH levels. While some companies may be looking for large building in a big industrial park, that’s not the environment most start-ups are looking for.

Instead creative communities tend to form in areas with low cost, quirky offices in interesting parts of town. They have great independent coffee shops just around the corner, relaxed bars and nice restaurants by up and coming chefs. They have art galleries, independent cinemas and music venues; farmers markets, gastro pubs and small fashion retailers. The also have reasonable transport links and low rents. Places like Shoreditch, Bermondsey and now Dalston in London; Southpark, The Mission and DUMBO in the US.

The above description may sound like a cliché or a stereotype (and I am somewhat over egging the pudding here for effect), but if you want to manufacture a new creative hub on the site of the Olympic city you’d probably be better off funding art spaces and offering free rent to independent coffee shop owners than building a traditional enterprise park. Get your architects to create building of character out of brick and stone, rather than giant warehouse sheds. Focus on office space for small and medium sized companies as well as mega corps, and optimise for walking rather than driving. Take a leaf from Malmo council in Sweden, or the folks in Bristol and set up interesting incubators and arts spaces like Minc and the Watershed. Make sure there is high quality training to teach the new generation of technologists, while ensuring the start-up ideas can the funding and support they need.

In short, don’t try to build a scaled down Cargo Cult version of Silicon Valley. Instead create an environment where people can experiment and ideas can propagate. Not through enterprise parks and business centres but through bars and coffee shops. That’s where innovation really happens.

About the author

User Experience Designer and CEO of Clearleft, Andy is the author of CSS Mastery, curates the dConstruct and UX London events and is responsible for Silverbackapp, a low cost usability testing application for the Mac. Andy is a regular speaker at international conferences and was named one of the 100 most influential people in the UK digital sector by Wired Magazine.